Pivotal Question
by GoogleKnowsUs
Summary: This is set in one of the most painful episodes ... ever ... Rise. #LeSigh. This might turn into a multi chapter story, turning AU soon. Otherwise it'll stay as it is. Rated K Plus. Let's follow Kate Beckett into the woods and see her and Castle deal with their separation. Can Kate fix the damage she has done by pretending she didn't hear Castle's words at the cemetery?


**A/N: This is set before some of the events of 4x01 - Rise. Consider this an episode insert of the time Kate is away. It didn't leave me alone and I had to write it all down. I hope you like and I hope to also have you on board with my bigger stories "Exigency" (complete) and follow-up "Drop By Drop" (in progress). Reviews are golden, you know the drill. I don't know if this is complete yet, or not. Let me know what you think.**

**This piece of work has been ripped to shreds by zombiede and WriterLeigh. I deserved it.**

**I also must tell you, I don't own Castle. I just like to borrow them from time to time to have some fun ;-)**

* * *

_If this world is going to hell,_  
_We might as well,_  
_Love one another,_  
_Until the end. _

_Duplex Inc. - "Hell in a handbag"_

* * *

Excruciating pain.

Shock.

Falling.

Shouts.

Surprise.

A rapid fluttering of eyelids. A fight to remain coherent. To hear.

_"Kate. I love you. I love you Kate."_

Weakness.

Darkness.

Silence.

Nothingness.

* * *

She hadn't called. Even though she had said she would. It felt like one big lie, one of those kind that reminded you constantly of what you had done. Every time Kate looked into the mirror and saw the reflection of her exhausted and pale features, she was reminded how wrong she had been. But how was she supposed to deal with what had happened? Some lunatic had tried to kill her, on the verge of darkness her partner confessed his feelings afraid he would never see her again, speak to her, touch her...

She shook her head. But with too much force.

It hurt.

She stopped.

No they hadn't been _there _but a small voice inside the back of her head told her that she should have been. Would have been. Without looking back to what she'd been through. Deep down inside Kate knew how good they could be together, how well they'd fit, how perfect they could be.

She was broken.

She _is_ broken.

Who said that she was ready to dive into it?

Someone that would be there for her and she would be there for him.

'Stupid', she scolded herself for her thoughts. Technically she had been with other men. Oh, not just technically, in the true sense of the word, she had had relationships before Castle had waltzed into her life and she had even had some while he had been her partner.

Why was she feeling all weird and confused thinking about him?

Why had she hurt him so much at the hospital?

She hadn't called. Even if the phone had laid heavily in her hands more than once. His number already dialed. Him being on her short dial list, even being #1 - 'Better not tell Esposito' she thought and grinned - and about ten times the call had almost connected, she had been anticipating the first ring and then she had frantically aborted the call. Heavily breathing, her heart pounding almost too painfully in her chest, Yes, she was a coward. Apparently.

She should have called.

She should have told him that she loved him, too.

Because she did.

Maybe she also should have told him that she had ended things with Josh. Immediately after Castle had left her hospital room. She was single, free. But broken. She was on the mend. In a cabin in the woods, pretty much out of any cell phone range which had died down her urge to call him anyways. She liked to think that the poor reception was the reason she didn't call. Ignoring that her cowardice was the reason.

She had been hiding in relationships with men she didn't love, just like he had said. She had brushed it off, told him they were over and she had been convinced at the time. It had been the truth. How dare he talking abut her love life like he had a say in it, anyway. He had pushed her with his speech, pushed her to reconsider and she hadn't liked what she had seen. Regardless of how she had thought of Castle in that very moment when he had confronted her with the cold-hearted truth she had to admit how accurate his claims had been.

* * *

_"I know you hide there the same way you hide in these nowhere relationships with men you don't love.  
You could be happy, Kate.  
You deserve to be happy.  
But you're afraid."  
_

* * *

She was weak.

Weaker than she liked.

The old, dusty wooden clock on the wall signaled that it was almost noon. She decided to dress in her exercise clothes and increase the distance she had been walking once again. She was now at almost 2 miles and felt good each step that she made. Sometimes she had even felt the energy to insert little slow jogs which had left her panting and breathless when she - too soon! - had to slow down again. Still, she was making a constant effort to get fitter every day, at the same time fearing her progress could mean that she could be returning to New York City earlier than she realized. She missed the city, she missed her friends and her work.

She missed Castle.

Her dad had delivered her a letter the other week.

In order to be declared fit for duty and to resume her work as a member of the NYPD she had to undergo therapy. She had snorted when she had read those lines. Later that night, curled up in her bed after a shockingly realistic nightmare had ripped her from much needed sleep she had realized seeing a shrink wasn't half bad compared to the nightmarish experience she had gone through.

'Time to face the demons,' she thought as she bent down to fix her shoelaces. A sharp pain burst thorough her chest and had its epitome in her scar. A not so much needed reminder of a lunatic with a sniper rifle.

* * *

Nothing. After a few weeks he had pretty much given up. As far he could tell, no one was really blaming him for it. Except for him that is. At first he was outraged by his lack of patience, his struggle to hold on. Then his self-preservation won the internal fight he had been busy with. A small voice at the back of his head told him to let her go, let her find her way without him. Somehow the voice didn't understand that he didn't see any way for himself without her. Even if it was just to be her plucky sidekick. He had tried to convince himself that he didn't need more than that.

Bullshit.

He needed her.

Given that she hadn't called him despite promising that she would, he had realized that the feeling couldn't be mutual after all. His confession swallowed by her unconsciousness, her blank expression when he asked her what she remembered. He couldn't help himself but wonder if she really hadn't heard him.

Maybe she had.

And didn't care.

_Ouch_, that hurt even more. It was a possibility, although actually likely, he didn't even want to think about. It hurt. A lot.

* * *

_I know you hide there the same way you hide in these nowhere relationships with men you don't love.  
You could be happy, Kate.  
You deserve to be happy.  
But you're afraid.  
_

* * *

"Dad?" the small voice of his teenage daughter brought him back into the here and now.

"Hey," he said, his voice raspy and rough. He hadn't had anything to talk about recently. Why use a voice that didn't get heard, anyways?

"How long have you been staring at the bottom of your empty scotch glass now, dad?" Alexis asked, worried by his recent behavior, "You've been sitting here since you got back from the precinct."

"Did they tell you to check on me?"

The redhead smiled and patted Castle's shoulder, "Pretty much. Anything popped?!"

"Nothing," he sighed and stared back into the empty glass.

"Needless to ask, she didn't call, did she?"

Castle wordlessly shook his head, the frustration vibrating off his every cell. He was so disappointed. By her, by himself.

"It is none of my business, Dad, really..."

"Go on, you can't make it worse than it already is, pumpkin..."

"What did you tell her?" The redhead asked shyly, "I mean after she went down. What did you say?"

Castle just stared at his daughter. For a long time. Then he simply said: "The truth. I told her the truth."

He grabbed the scotch glass once again and murmured: "I think I need a refill."

"And I think you've had enough, dad!" Alexis said trenchantly and shook her head, his behavior obviously annoying her. He sighed and put the glass back onto the desk and turned towards his daughter once again, looking at her with weary eyes.

"Does she make you happy, dad?" Alexis asked, cautiously.

Castle collected his thoughts for several moments, thinking hard. He blinked rapidly to prevent small tear drops from feeling too at home in the corners of his eyes.

"Yeah, she does."

"Is it enough?"

"It's enough for now..."

"Okay..." Alexis said and gently squeezed his arm, "and no more scotch today, promise?"

"Promise," he said and when Alexis left the room, he put all the liquor into a shelf and went into the kitchen to put the glasses into the sink. He decided that all the frustration wasn't going to leave his body until he did something about it.

He sat down and opened his laptop. It was time to dive into the world of Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook.

* * *

"Katie?"

"Dad?" Kate spotted her father in the entrance area of the small cabin and quickly made her way over to him, lightly kissing his cheek.

"How are things out here in the rough wilderness?" He teased her and smiled at her sweaty appearance. She had been jogging a lot more on her two mile distance today judging by the small glistening pearls of sweat on her forehead and her small panting. But she didn't look as exhausted as she had been only a week ago. Jim felt relieved. His worst fear, her giving up, seemed to have gone down the drain.

"Things have been good, thanks dad," Kate responded and she dubbed some sweat away with a small towel, "Sorry, I'm all sweaty."

"That's alright, I see you're making progress?"

"I managed to almost run the whole two mile distance. I only stopped to slow down twice," Kate answered somewhat proudly and grinned.

"Are you returning to New York, soon?"

"I am planning to, yeah. I have some unfinished business there, I guess."

"Does this have anything to do with the letter that I brought here about a week ago?" Jim asked and sat down at the small kitchen table. Kate fetched two glasses of water and then sat down opposite to him. She pushed one glass towards him and held the other herself, gulping down a lot of the water in one go. She hadn't realized how thirsty she had gotten from her run.

"Yeah, I have to see a shrink," Kate snorted but sitting with her dad, she was unable to gloss over the fact that she saw a need to. Hiding her true feelings had never been necessary with her dad. She felt vulnerable and weak but gloriously open and whole at the same time. Even if she needed to be fixed. She needed someone to do that, being pretty sure that visiting a psychiatrist's office was just not the whole truth.

She needed Castle to fix her.

"And Castle?" Jim asked, hitting the nerve.

"Another unfinished business, I guess," Kate answered and bit her lip.

"I don't know what he said in that cemetery, Kate, but it sure must have been important. With so little time at his hands, it sure was something..." Jim trailed off, unsure whether to push his daughter further. He knew that she cared about Castle. Deeply. More than she had ever cared about anyone before. Whatever the man had said after her shooting it must have been one hell of a declaration for her to hide out in the woods.

"I'd rather not talk about it, dad."

* * *

After several hours of furious typing Castle awoke from his writing-induced coma and looked around, stunned to see the sunset already. He eyed the clock in the corner, squinting his eyes. He realized that he must have been writing for the better part of the last six hours. His eyes were even more weary from looking at his computer screen for such a long time and he rubbed them. That didn't help.

He got up and made his way to the kitchen to fetch himself a glass of water.

Whatever he had produced in the last couple of hours sure didn't scream bestselling author to him but he decided to keep it on his laptop even if it was the biggest load of crap ever produced. He drowned two glasses of water and took an Advil to relief his thrumming headache. Then he returned to his study and switched a lamp on. The natural light of the sun was retreating from the room rapidly and he felt more productive than he had in a couple of days. If your muse didn't really want to be his muse any more, if she shut you out of her life completely, inspiration is what rarely struck you.

Castle was surprised that it had.

Sitting back down on his comfortable leather office chair he clicked on the document he had been writing on, realizing, that it was everything but a chapter for his next novel. It had nothing to do with Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook.

Instead it was a love letter.

To Kate.

Which he would never send.

Because he assumed she wouldn't read it anyway.

His finger hovered above the delete button and it took him several minutes to ponder whether he should delete the file or keep it. Instead of deleting it, he pushed the 'print' button and as he waited for the letter to be printed he switched to the other document he had been working on.

Reading parts of it he realized that this, too, needed a lot of work. For now it was about Nikki Heat being shot to the chest, Jameson Rook declaring his undying love for her and given the recent circumstances it sounded too severe and too cheesy at the same time. Castle decided to store the file away until he could find the urge to develop his idea further. Whatever had happened to his relationship with Kate, he was pretty damn sure that she wouldn't want to read an all too similar situation to be in one of his books.

Once his letter was printed he fetched it and folded it neatly and put it into an envelope sealing it. Then he wrote _'To Katherine Houghton Beckett'_ on it and stored it in his top drawer.

"You know what we are Kate? We're over..." he mumbled and left his study. It was time to get a grip on reality and to move forward. He couldn't be the plucky sidekick anymore. He needed to step up his game.

* * *

A couple of days later Kate felt the need to escape her self-chosen isolation. She couldn't stand it anymore. The sound of the trees rustling in the wind, the chirping of the birds, the sound of the small river close by the cabin. It all sounded monotonous to her, never changing. The same rhythm of things, every day was exactly like the last.

Kate stood in the small bedroom of the cabin and was lost in her thoughts. '_If only he had said it again_,' Kate thought and mouth agape she stared at her reflection. Where did that come from? Did she really want him to repeat his love declaration for her?

The answer was yes, she needed him to be sure in order for her to be sure. Did that even make sense? Yes, she had been hiding in relationships with men she didn't love only to have someone to rely on, not realizing that the someone to rely on had waltzed into her life about three years ago.

It was time to go back to the city.

She had to tackle things, she had to see him.

She had to see if they could fix what had been broken by a sniper on a cemetery a few months ago.

She had to heal.

But not alone.

She hastily threw her belongings into her suitcase and made sure that windows and doors of the cabin were properly locked. She slammed the suitcase in the trunk of her car, slipped behind the wheel and as the tires ripped up the dirt from the unfortified street she sighed in relief, feeling somewhat excited and happy to return.

She was going home.

She was curious what to expect.

She hoped that she could return to something that hadn't been completely destroyed.

She had to.

* * *

**_A/N: Standalone? Multi-chapter? I seriously don't know. _**


End file.
